Re:Maker Faire halts operations and lays off all staff
by stevekemp on Saturday June 08, 2019 @02:11AM
(#20130921)
>Are there actually consumer electronics out there that are just arduino examples glued together?
A lot of the existing power-switches that can be toggled with an app / radio-button are little more than an ESP8266 and a relay. The sonoff-line of smart-switches would be the obvious example.
Sonoff also make and sell RF<->WiFi bridges, but I guess the target market is already hackers rather than consumers for things like that.
Otherwise I've seen a few wifi-controllable LED-strips, and similar things that I'm pretty sure are identical in terms of hardware to what I've built. You can see some crowdfunded projects are just scaled-up home-toys too.
I'm struggling to think of better examples, but I'm sure they exist! In terms of product though it's interesting to evolve something from a bundle of junk loosely coupled to being a thing in a pretty case which can be enjoyed by others. I setup a trivial display to show tram-departures from outside my house, which the whole family uses now and loves. It went from a cardboard-box with a pile of stuff in it to a 3d-printed display, and then later I added the ability for it to be controlled via a HTTP-server, running as an Access-Point when it was initially setup. The whole thing became very very user-friendly. (But at the same time the only real user is ourselves, and trying to sell it would be a bit difficult.)
A lot of the existing power-switches that can be toggled with an app / radio-button are little more than an ESP8266 and a relay. The sonoff-line of smart-switches would be the obvious example.
Sonoff also make and sell RF<->WiFi bridges, but I guess the target market is already hackers rather than consumers for things like that.
Otherwise I've seen a few wifi-controllable LED-strips, and similar things that I'm pretty sure are identical in terms of hardware to what I've built. You can see some crowdfunded projects are just scaled-up home-toys too.
I'm struggling to think of better examples, but I'm sure they exist! In terms of product though it's interesting to evolve something from a bundle of junk loosely coupled to being a thing in a pretty case which can be enjoyed by others. I setup a trivial display to show tram-departures from outside my house, which the whole family uses now and loves. It went from a cardboard-box with a pile of stuff in it to a 3d-printed display, and then later I added the ability for it to be controlled via a HTTP-server, running as an Access-Point when it was initially setup. The whole thing became very very user-friendly. (But at the same time the only real user is ourselves, and trying to sell it would be a bit difficult.)